One Container Ship Pollutes As Much As 50 Million Cars
Much ado and attention has been paid to the pollutants emmitted from the tail pipes of cars and trucks in recent years, both here in the U.S. and across the pond in Europe. With an estimated 250 million passenger vehicles in the U.S. alone, it would seem that cars would be a major contributor to pollution and air quality issues here and abroad. But newly released data from Europe suggests that a single container ship may cause as much pollution as 50 million cars and release as much as 5,000 tons of sulfur oxide into the air annually. And there are 90,000 such ships of varying sizes across the world at any one time.
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This has raised the ire of many an environmentalists both in Europe, which has many of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and the U.S., where the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that as many as 60,000 deaths a year can be attributed to coastal pollution from container ships. The Emma Maersk, the longest operating cargo ship in the world, is about 1,300 feet from bow to stern and can carry as many as 11,000 twenty-foot metal shipping containers. All that baggage requires a massive 14 cylinder, 109,000 horsepower diesel motor that consumes 1,660 gallons of heavy oil fuel an hour even at its most efficient setting. These motors are among the most efficient in the world too, with a thermal efficiency rating around 50%, where the average car or airplane motor has thermal efficiency of just 25-30% at best.
It isn’t so much the motors that are causing the pollution as it is the heavy oil fuel, the lowest quality fuel available, which makes shipping across the ocean both cost-efficient and damaging to the environment. These ships operate 24 hours a day, 280 days a year, essentially becoming floating pollution factories that are absolutely necessary to the world economy. But unlike cars, you can’t demand smaller ships or more efficient engines since they already return half the energy in the fuel back into propelling power. My solution; bring back sails. Big sails.
With boats the length of a quarter-mile drag strip there is room enough for dozens of sails placed from bow to stern to catch the wind and assist in moving these leviathans. Maybe. I’m no engineer, but humanity had circumnavigated the world long before steam engines by just using the power of the wind. Whats more, the Maersk burns a gallon of fuel every 28 feet, which makes the Hummer look like a moped in terms of fuel consumption.
Even if the sails were just used to get the ships away from port, that would represent a major reduction in pollution since 70% of ship emissions are within 400km of land and fuel consumption. The average trans-Atlantic trip can consume as much as 200,000 gallons of heavy oil fuel. The EPA has plans of creating a “buffer zone” near land for low-emissions shipping by reducing the sulfur in fuel by 98% (the average car emits about 101 grams of sulfur annually compared to the 5,000 tons of a large container ship). The European Union has proposed two such emissions restricted shipping lanes too, but with less stringent regulations than the proposed U.S. zones.
Hey, we already have pirates, why not bring back galleons and side-paddlers too while we are at it?
Source: The Guardian
I did the math on the annual SOx numbers. It could in fact be 5000 TPY for a ship like that. The reason for such a high amount is not due inherently to the ship or the engine itself. It is the fuel, period. The fuel these ships use is typically between 2-3% sulfur by mass. That mass passes through the engine while being burned as fuel. All the sulfur which is used in the engine oxidizes to SOx, which weighs roughly double of what pure sulfur weighs. What goes in an engine goes out.
Contrast the heavy fuel which is 2-3% sulfur with “ULSD” fuel, ultra low sulfur diesel, which is 15 ppm of sulfur. The level of sulfur in heavy fuel is about 2-3000 times higher than ULSD fuel. If you ran ULSD in the Emma, she would only emit about 2-3 tons per year.
This problem should be fixed by regulating toxic (not just CO2) emissions for ships. If that means higher cost of intercontinental transportation so be it. It would make local production, which is (usually) environmentally preferable, more attractive.
Sails are also a very good idea and could provide more than 50% of the energy required for ships in the future.
Wow, this is a mind blowing article… Thank you very very much!
Check out SkySails at http://www.skysails.info/english/ so economics & capitalism can be good for the environment. Who would’ve thought?
Jean Vincent…who will police the international shipping companies? My experience is when business or people are forced to increase their costs some will break the rules. Examples are moonshine, illicit drugs, tobacco, gun running, etc. When unleaded gasoline 1st began to be marketed, it was more expensive than the leaded gasoline. Some modified their cars so they could use the larger nozzle & buy leaded gasoline.
Easy solution is to burn NH3 Annhydrous Ammonia in ships and turbines used for power production. Net result is O,Zero carbon emmissions. When the world is serious about cleaning things up Ocean Thermal Technology can produce NH3 and fresh water. Put that in your exhaust pipe!!!
How on Earth is the Carbon element (No6) ever considered a pollutant. The Carbon molecule is the basis of nearly all life on Earth, are all living things a pollutant?
A pollutant is defined as “waste matter that contaminates air or water”. Contaminate means to “make impure”.
CO2, commonly and erroneously referred to as “Carbon”, is, and always has been, a part of the Earth’s atmosphere, is NOT a pollutant.
In fact, without CO2, all life as we know it dies, full stop. Pollutants are not necessary for life!
For most of the Earth’s existence, CO2 levels have been much higher than than the 0.045% that we are approaching now.
Besides, CO2 level increases actually “follow” a warming event by 60 to 1000 years, it doesn’t cause warming.
Even the IPCC data was altered from the scientific data to something more politically suitable. Some of the original scientists have released this fact.
I suggest everyone do their own research and come to their own conclusions.
Royce
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H. L. Mencken
How about this for a thought,touching on the caring and responsible amongst us all,
Government the world over are now concirned about being green or at least that’s the things we are all constantly talking about.
If we cared so much about how much oil was left and how we get from A to B, it wouldn’t make any difference what the said vehicle looked like, as long as we didn’t have to walk any where or carry, this is what a vehicle is used for, is it not.
we either care or we don’t its as simple as that, if we are running out of oil, then we must act now, not when the world is so full of beautiful vehicles that we cannot drive, because there is no oil left.
Every government could say right, all new cars would have to be made to do a 100 miles to a gallon with a top speed of 65 miles per hour, the technology is available to do this right now, so why not do it today.
All cars could be made to a good standard throughout so we don’t have to spend huge amounts of fuel tranposrting them half way round the world, all parts would be fully interchangable and set a fixed price wherever you go in the world.
It would create the biggest labour market we have ever seen, it would be fair for all future generations and the enviornment as a whole,
Take away the road fund licence, and tax the fuel only, then those who don’t want to drive, won’t have to pay, this is the fairest for everybody and the enviornment, could we all work together for the good of everyone else.
The author should have checked his facts. According to a report published in August 2005 by the US Maritime Administration, “Containership Market Indicators”, the world containership fleet stood at 3,375 vessels with a capacity of 7.7 million TEU. The report also stated that there were another 950 containerships on order at that time through 2007 with an additional capacity of 3.6 million TEU. Another source, Clarksons has published data showing the net container fleet slot capacity at year end 2007 at 10.78 million TEU. That’s a long way from 90,000 vessels quoted in the article. Given the level of hyperbole in describing size of the containership fleet, one must question the validity of his other statements and conclusions.
[...] One of the big problems with hybrids however is the use of battery packs. These packs are expensive because they use rare or hard-to-mine metals. The current Prius makes use of nickel-hydride batteries, and the upcoming Plug-In Prius will be using lithium ion batteries. But the shortages of Prius batteries, at a time where much of the world is pushing for more fuel-efficient cars, highlights the problems of supply and demand for electric powered cars. The problem is so severe that Toyota is delaying its decision to begin building the Prius at its Tulepo, Mississippi plant. That means the Prius still needs to be shipped in from Japan on those dirty container ships. [...]